Harry Duncan (1916-1997) was a widely respected hand-press printer who published early works of poet Robert Lowell and writer Tennessee Williams. He started operating a traditional hand press in Cummington, Massachusetts in 1939, winning praise for setting high standards under the Cummington Press imprint. The operation was moved to Iowa City in 1956 when Duncan became director of the typographical laboratory at the University of Iowa’s School of Journalism. In 1972, he founded the fine arts press Abattoir Editions for the University of Nebraska, Omaha.
Duncan also wrote and published his own writings; his poetry was published in a 1954 anthology Poets of Today, and his translations of poetry by Dante were published in The Stone Beloved (Kairos Press, 1986). His book about typography, The Doors of Perception, was published in 1983, and he also wrote librettos for at least two operas. Over the course of his career, his wife estimated that he printed approximately 135 books of poetry and fiction. In 1982, an article in Newsweek magazine named Duncan the “father of the post-World War II private-press movement.”
